


a different kind of danger

by strongbut



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mental Health Issues, Past Sexual Abuse, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 06:43:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13565010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strongbut/pseuds/strongbut
Summary: “Come on darling, nobody knows this place better than you do,” Vex said.(Mother and Father knew it better, and so did the Briarwoods.)In the aftermath of the Briarwoods' deaths, Cassandra begins to heal. Slowly. Very, very slowly.





	a different kind of danger

Cassandra cried herself to sleep. _I want Delilah, I want Delilah._ Once upon a time her crying had been for Mamma, for Vesper, for Percival, for any friendly face, and now Percival slept across the hall and she might have tiptoed to his door, demanded affection and care, and instead she sobbed alone. What could Percival do for her? Did he know that she liked to be scratched behind the ears, that her feet were always cold and she needed extra blankets, that she liked geometry but was horrid at calculus, that she had developed a decided taste for mulled wine? Delilah knew. Delilah demanded the servants bring a fresh hot water bottle halfway through the night to replace the one gone cold, because Delilah had felt Cassandra’s icy toes against her own when they lay together and.

What could Percival do? He might make her a cup of tea, awkwardly pat her on the back, tell her some soothing bullshit about everything being safe now. Suggest a healer. Suggest some rest. The same he’d do for any eighteen year old girl who appeared crying at his door, with the same vagueness of manner and sense of incompetence.  

Percival wouldn’t _touch_ her. Not the way she needed, and not that she wanted him to, but even if she had and he’d wanted to as well, he’d be utterly useless. Not like Delilah, who knew exactly how to arch her fingers, and.

Something of fear and loneliness and desperate longing coiled like a snake in Cassandra’s chest and it filled her, almost a sort of comfort, something full, something to gather. 

_“Sylas is gone. Delilah is on death’s door. Whitestone needs to be tended to and protected.”_

Oh how she’d hated that half-elf with his slow voice, the voice her mother used when she’d throw a tantrum, like she was feeble, like she was _stupid._ Delilah never treated her like a child, though she was only sixteen the first time they’d gone to bed, and Delilah never held her punches, always treated Cassandra like anyone else, like she was capable and attractive and special and.

Now she was just a scared little girl, wiping her nose on her pillowcase and wanting to be held. What a repulsive feeling. She’d almost forgotten the ache of it; it had been so long since the last time her desires remained unmet. 

  

* * *

Everyone had a task except Cassandra. It was as if there were a schoolmaster handing out assignments and Cassandra arrived late and missed hers. So she watched as her brother’s friends scurried in and out of the castle, absorbed in their private work, and she continued the massive needlepoint fireplace cover she’d begun the week before. Delilah helped her pick out the design: rabbits skipping across a snowy landscape. “Look at their big eyes and floppy ears,” Delilah said, holding open the pattern book with her middle finger. “They look a bit like you, my treasure.”

It was tedious, numbing work and Cassandra began to look forward to meals, when they all gathered together. Her brother’s friends exuded a gentle intimacy that both annoyed and chastened her, as if they meant it as a personal rebuke to her melancholy. Percival often let his arm rest around Keyleth’s shoulders and in turn she would lay her head against his chest. The twins ruffled Percival’s hair, joked at his expense, called him all sorts of revolting pet names. And he smiled at them, gratefully drank in their teasing, seemed nervous if enough time passed without a gentle barb.

He’d never had friends before— Or rather, he’d had _friends_ in a vague way, but never real intimates. It was hard to recall a single of their names. They all blended together: equally bookish, awkward, never quite as clever as Percival, always struggling to keep up with his magnificent brain. Perhaps he was aware of how unusual this camaraderie was; he certainly never relaxed around his schoolmates in quite the same way he did with Vox Machina. ( _Which was still a ridiculous name.)_

Nights were hard but Cassandra kept a bottle of firewater under her pillow and it helped, mostly. Keyleth sometimes fussed over her bloodshot eyes and tried to press all sorts of foul-smelling herbs on her, but Cassandra was getting used to it. The lack of sleep, and also Keyleth. She liked Keyleth. Sometimes she thought that Keyleth liked her in return but mostly resigned herself to being an object of pity.

Percival pitied her. It was obvious. Possibly part of him wanted to swoop in and save her from her dark past with brotherly wisdom, and the other part just didn’t know what to do with her. Or at least, that was what Cassandra told herself whenever she felt her heart begin to soften. Percival was never her favorite. ( _Vesper. You loved Vesper best and she loved you.)_ Percival was always tinkering alone and complaining about the scarcity of mechanical parts, complaining whenever someone asked him to leave his tinkering for diplomatic duties or just a family meal.

“You haven’t touched your food.”

See? He pitied her. Cassandra sat back in her chair and heard in the depths of her mind, Vesper snap about _table manners, what have I told you about slouching?_

“I’m not very hungry.”

He frowned. “You should try and eat anyway.”

She cocked her head to the side and smiled. “No.”

Nobody argued.

 

* * *

 

“When was the last time you went out of the castle?” Keyleth asked. She looked very beautiful with the snow collecting in her red curls and Cassandra liked her more than ever. She didn’t try to put on airs like the twins and her jokes were never crude. She was air-headed, maybe not the bosom friend Cassandra would have chosen for herself, but a suitable companion given the circumstances.

“I went for a walk in the southern courtyard with Lord Briarwood last Winter’s Crest. Or what was supposed to be Winter’s Crest.” Cassandra turned away from Keyleth’s sympathetic clucking. She did not need to be mothered. She had a mother _(she killed her mother)_. 

“I can’t imagine spending a year away from grass and flowers and living things,” Keyleth said.

They turned towards the stables. Cassandra remembered tugging on Vesper’s hand, begging to be allowed to ride with her, and Vesper letting her hold out an apple for Polly, the ancient white mare all the de Rolo children practiced on, and the feel of Polly’s soft mouth against her palm and Vesper guiding her hand, showing her how to tighten the bridle and. 

“It will be nice to go riding again,” Cassandra said. “I’m sure I’m terribly out of practice.” 

“It’s one of those things you never forget,” Keyleth said. 

Mother said the same thing when Cassandra finally mastered that horrid violin concerto that took months of practice and countless tears. “Now you’ll have it forever. It’s one of those things you’ll never forget,” she said, holding Cassandra’s face in her hands and planting a kiss on her forehead, and Cassandra had been so _proud._

“I was never very… Adventurous. Ludwig and Whitney were the ones who were always tramping through the forest and finding new species of spider and all that. I like being inside. I always have. It’s rather a blessing that I was the one to… Well, I mean. Percival never could have kept his temper around them.” It came out a little too fast. Cassandra knew she’d tripped over her words. She wanted to tell Keyleth that she was alright, that she didn’t need all those nervous glances. She wanted to somehow regain a little bit of dignity. 

Keyleth was silent for a long while and when she spoke, it was slow and surprisingly thoughtful for such a silly sort of person. “I don’t think anything that happened to you can be considered a blessing.” 

“I’m alive, aren’t I?” Cassandra said. She reached into her skirts for the heavy brass keyring, recovered from Delilah’s dressing table. _Mother’s dressing table_. Mother kept the keys there as well. Now it was Cassandra’s dressing table, really. 

“You’re allowed to want more than just that, Cassandra. Being alive is the bare minimum. The Briarwoods don’t get a pass because they hadn’t killed you yet.”

Cassandra fumbled for the right key and opened the stable doors with some difficulty. Rust. She’d have to have the locks replaced. Inside, the smell of dung and fresh hay was so familiar that for a moment she felt a little dizzy. She tucked the keys back in her pocket and waited to respond until they were enveloped in the soft gloom, black eyes following them from stall to stall. She didn’t recognize any of the horses. She used to know them all by name, but these were strangers, watching her and waiting for her to make a mistake.

“You have no right to tell me what I am allowed to want, or do, or anything. You are _no one_. You are nothing to me. Do you understand? You don’t know anything.” She spoke slowly, stretching the words out until they were almost sensual, luxurious. She tried to sound like Delilah. 

“I’m sorry, I— Of course you can think whatever— I just meant, I think you might benefit from, uh… You know what? Never mind. My mistake. I overstepped. Let’s go find some horses.” Keyleth scurried to a random stall and began caressing its inhabitant, a rather skinny chestnut pony.

Cassandra wanted an argument and, denied her chance, felt almost on the verge of tears.

“No, I…” _A de Rolo never apologizes._ Julius told her that, though she couldn’t remember the occasion. She could hear it though, in his sing-song tenor. “I’m sorry. You were trying to be kind and I thank you for that.”

Keyleth smiled, cheek to cheek with the fucking pony. “It’s alright. You have a lot to be angry about.”

_Huh._

 

* * *

 

And then there was the drinking. Not that Cassandra disapproved in theory. Cassandra adored alcohol; it was truly the love of her young life, her most constant companion, her reason for living, and yet… It was a private love affair. Like masturbation: nothing to be ashamed of exactly, but not something you wanted to do in front of your brother. 

Vox Machina had a very different philosophy (about alcohol, though Cassandra wouldn’t have been shocked if some perversity was revealed). Every evening after supper they’d go tramping into the wine cellar and return with bottles stacked under their arms and in their pockets. And then they would all sprawl out in front of the fire in Mother’s private sitting room, playing games and cheering and pounding their fists on the furniture. Sometimes they even _sang._

“You’re welcome to join us, _dar-_ ling,” said the female half-elf on the second night, her thin lips curling into a vaguely threatening smile. “We don’t bite.” Then, realizing that the phrase was in poor taste, she blanched and began talking too fast. “I just meant, we’d like to make you feel comfortable with us, you know? We’re a very welcoming party. That’s all.” 

Cassandra refused, tactful, venomous, and spent the night both vindicated and regretful. She would have liked to attend, if only to better understand the cacophony of noise that inevitably kept her awake until morning. 

On the third night, she heard a short of rhythmic chanting: “PER-CY, PER-CY, PER-CY!” And then a chorus of yelps and screeches, a wet sound, almost like a bucket of water hitting stone, and Keyleth’s voice, slurred and still disgusting maternal: “Let it out, buddy. Just let it out.” Then laughter. An orchestra of laughter. How did so few people make so much noise?

She'd already refused their invitation and she wouldn’t embarrass herself by going back on her word. But she did wonder what it was that made the splashing sound, especially when Percival emerged for breakfast looking only a little bit better than he had when he was strapped to Ripley’s operating table. 

“Busy night?” She asked, arching an eyebrow. Percival coughed into his coffee.

“He’s embarrassed,” Keyleth whispered from across the table, with a grin that showed all her white teeth. “I lost count after his, what? Fifth pint of ale?”

Much to her annoyance, Cassandra was impressed. Percival had always been a scrawny, gangly boy and five pints was a lot of ale for anyone to stomach. Just the sheer _quantity_ of liquid... She watched him miserably stir his bowl of porridge and felt something almost like... Respect? _Damnit._

“Mother would be proud,” Cassandra said. Percival looked up from his porridge-stirring and pale as he was, he paled even further.

“Really,” said Cassandra. “She was rather wild in her youth. Aunt Clotilde told Vesper stories and Vesper told me.” 

“Why didn’t I hear these stories?” Percival asked sullenly. 

Cassandra found herself laughing. _What an odd feeling._ “Because you never asked. Anyway, my point was just that Mother wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with ale. And she was always trying to get Ludwig and Oliver to take you to the tavern with them.” 

_(“But Maaa, he’s such a wet blanket.” “Yeah, he’ll scare off all the girls.” And Percival turning pink and then crimson and then a lovely shade of mauve, mumbling that he didn’t want to waste his evening on debauchery thankyouverymuch. And Mother raising her hands to the ceiling as if to say, “I tried my best! Pelor, what else do you want from me?”)_

“Your mom sounds like a cool lady,” the female half-elf said very quietly, almost a sickroom whisper, and Cassandra realized that the others were watching them very closely. Like animals in a zoo. 

“Our mother was wonderful,” Percival said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…” He wiped his mouth on his napkin and stood up, a little unsteadily.

“Feel better, Freddy,” the male half-elf said with a thunderous clap on the back. 

“Yeah, drink some water!” 

“You were _magnificent_ last night, darling.”

Cassandra sat in silence. 

She drove him away. He was happy (hungover, but happy) and she made everything awful and awkward, and now he was gone. That would show her, talking about their mother like she was… the stuff of breakfast conversation, of pleasant nostalgia. It was sickening. She was sickening. She pushed her plate away.

“I…” 

They were _looking_ at her and their eyes were wide and sympathetic and they wanted to _help_ her, they wanted to mother her. Were they idiots? Didn’t they know that she killed her mother? Two mothers now, both dead at Cassandra’s hand. And this band of hapless adventurers thought they could be any comfort at all?

* * *

 

The rabbits looked reproachful in the morning light. Cassandra abandoned them and, finding herself unbearably tired, stripped down to her slip and crawled back into bed. Sleep came slowly. Her dreams were confused but, apparently terrifying considering the number of times she awoke in a cold sweat, panting and half-sobbing with fright. 

 

* * *

 

Keyleth left a plate of sandwiches on the bedside table, and a beer stein spilling with tulips and snowbells and violets. _Spring flowers._ Cassandra didn’t want to like them, but she did. 

 

* * *

“Cassie, Cassie… Dearest, sweetest Cassie, listen to me. Listen to Mamma.”

But she didn’t look like Mother, not with her temple oozing black and her white nightdress stained red all over and her hair wild and loose and that _horrible_ rasping voice... Cassandra held back.

“I need you to listen to me, my precious darling. I need you to do exactly as I say. Can you do that? Please Cassie, please. Be brave for Mamma, dearest. Be brave and do whatever they tell you. You must do whatever it is the Briarwoods say, even if you think I’ll be cross with you. I promise you, you will escape this, but you must _wait_. Can you do that? Can you be patient and brave for me?”

Footsteps. And Mother doubling into herself, a yelp of fear escaping her mouth. 

“Do whatever the Briarwoods tell you, Cassie. You must promise me.”

A door thudding open. 

“Please, my dearest, _please._ ”

 

* * *

 

“Do you need a healer?” 

Cassandra rolled away from the door and curled deeper into the blankets.

 

* * *

 

“Cass? Cass, are you alright? Please just tell me.”

She glared at Percival with as much dignity as she could muster, having been lying in bed for over twenty four hours. In response, he pursed his lips and crossed his arms.

“I want to be left alone,” she said. He didn’t move.

“Cass, you’ve been through a lot.”

_ That was one way of putting it. _

“You’ve been through a lot and I just think a healer might help. Even if it’s not a, erm, physical problem.”

She drew herself up and straightened her shoulders, trying to look domineering. Delilah could make herself look domineering even in bed. If anything, she was at her most regal when surrounded by sleep-rumpled bedclothes. Cassandra didn’t think she inherited that particular gift but she tried anyway. 

“I’m not crazy,” she said, relishing the moment when his face fell. “I’m tired. And I’d like to be left alone to sleep.” 

“Come on, Cass. We’re putting up the Winter’s Crest decorations. Just come and sit with us for a bit.” There is was, that bit of a wheedle in his voice, that high-pitched whine; it made her wobbly all over. _(“Come on, Cassandra. Just one bite.”)_

_(“Eat, Cassandra. You’re a growing girl and you need to keep up your strength.”)_

_(“Sit with me, Cassandra. Let me look at you. Have you done something new with your hair? It suits you. Everything suits you. Such a delicate little creature.”)_

* * *

 

There was a goliath in the kitchens. He was kneading dough between his massive fists, his scarred grey face scrunched in concentration while Keyleth coached his movements: “There, gently, gently. Just get the air bubbles out. Now form it into a ball!”

Someone found an old recipe book in the library and they were attempting, with rather more mess than was probably necessary, to recreate Mother’s gingerbread cakes. Cassandra whisked egg whites and watched. There was something unnerving about the sight of Percival, up to his elbows in flour, arguing with a gnome about the correct temperature for pleasantly moist cake. And while the sight of Mother’s spindly handwriting, combined with the overpowering smell of nutmeg and cinnamon, had toppled Cassandra into a mound of emotional rubble, Percival was unaffected. Or if he was affected, it manifested itself as giddiness. As if he could revisit fond memories and derive joy from them, instead of anguish. 

“Ma made something a bit like this,” the female half-elf was saying, rolling dough with the side of a glass. “Hers weren’t as spicy though, and she added currants.” 

“I like this better,” her twin added. He was wearing a striped apron. He looked ridiculous. “Our mother was good at a very great many things but she was a horrid cook.” 

“Wait till you’ve tried it,” Percival warned. “It would be just like Mother to leave out some secret, crucial ingredient.” And he smiled. Cassandra tightened her grip on the whisk.

“I’m surprised she baked her own cakes,” said Keyleth. “I mean, I bet you guys had loads of servants and fancy cooks and all that.”

Percy shrugged. “She liked food. She was always hanging around the kitchens, testing out recipes and menu planning and all that sort of thing. It was her hobby, I suppose. I liked helping her. It’s just chemistry, really. You mix chemicals in the right quantity and heat them at the right temperature for the right amount of time and then…” He raised a wooden spoon as if conducting a symphony. “You get cake.” 

“I like this better than your other chemical experiments,” the gnome said, laughing. “Oh, I can just imagine a line of seven little sous-chefs.”

“I hated it,” Cassandra said, unprompted. Percival jumped a little. Did he forgot that she was there? “I thought it was humiliating that Mother was always hanging around with the servants and getting her gowns covered in hollandaise sauce.” 

“Ah,” said Keyleth. “Well, teenagers always find something to hate about their parents. My dad, he’s obsessed with this puzzle game with numbers and boxes. I don’t remember how it’s played, something about adding all the numbers up? But he’s done hundreds of them. When I was sixteen I was angry about something and I ripped up one that was only half-finished and he was so furious.” 

“My mother once bet a month’s rent on a bridge game. She won but oh man, was I mad,” said the gnome. Cassandra wished she had bothered to learn his name. 

“Do you remember Father’s pipes?” Percy said. _(“Cassandra dear, why does your family’s entire home smell like the inside of a tavern. It’s quite shocking and Dr. Ripley says it’s horrible for one’s health, you know. Irritates the lungs.”)_

“Of course I remember.” She used to sleep wrapped up in his old dressing gowns because the smell of tobacco and mint helped her sleep. When Delilah took it away _(“If you need a new robe, I’d rather you just asked me. It’s no trouble at all and really, you shouldn’t use that ratty old thing.”)_ , Cassandra thought, for the first and only time, about jumping from the top tower. She came to her senses halfway out the window. It just seemed very melodramatic to kill oneself over a dead man’s old clothing, especially when it was highly unlikely she’d even be allowed to stay dead. 

She blinked and realized with a funny sinking feeling in her stomach, that the conversation continued on without her. 

 

* * *

 

The rabbits were nearly done. Not her best work, but passable. The sky was next, just a giant patch of blue silk thread that required absolutely no higher-level thinking. Nothing but blue for inches and inches. No shading, no complicated stitching. Just blue. 

* * *

 

She missed Delilah so much that she thought she might die of it. She might strangle herself in Delilah’s ballgowns while trying to smother her body in the scent of copper and lilac. Her heart might just explode with longing, spraying blood all over her clean white sheets.

 

* * *

 

Mother’s jewelry box looked very small. There was a horrible creaking noise and Cassandra’s heart fell into her stomach as she imagined it broken, gone forever, and then slowly, the lullaby started. 

“We were exploring and uh, Keyleth thought you might want to see it,” the female half-elf said, a little awkward with her hands shoved in her pockets like a schoolboy, eyeing the box with unashamed greed.

Cassandra finished her stitch and cut the thread with her little scissors and stuck her needle in a pincushion. “It was my mother’s. Did you look inside?” 

“No,” said Keyleth.

“Yes,” said the half-elf. They looked at each other.

“Just a peek,” Keyleth explained. “When we saw it was jewelry we came straight to you.”

“I would have thought Lady Briarwood took anything of value long ago,” Cassandra said. She held out her hands for the box. She wanted to take it and hide it away where no one would ever find it again, especially herself. 

It _was_ smaller than she remembered, and much lighter. There were the little violets painted around the corners with their branches twisting and curling together. And the lullaby. Her hands shook slightly as she opened the lid and the lullaby trailed off. She was very aware that she was being stared at.

Gone were the pearls, but she expected as much. No wedding band either, or the emerald earrings that Mother intended to pass down to Vesper as a wedding present. Sometimes Vesper would try them on and and stare at herself in Mother’s gilded mirror, lips pressed together in a half-smile-half-grimace as she tried to imitate the illustrations of brides in her favorite novels. Cassandra wondered if the wedding dress was locked away somewhere. It was only half-finished when the Briarwoods came, the sleeves still unattached and half the lace trailing off. _Still._ It was beautiful.

“Is that a locket?” Keyleth asked, her voice somehow very sharp and painful in Cassandra’s head. Cassandra frowned. She wanted to go back to remembering.

“It’s just a cheap thing,” she said, reaching past it and clutching the little medal of Pelor, tucked in a pink chiffon bag. “ _This_ is real silver.”

“Vex, look! Doesn’t he look like Percy?” Keyleth held out the open locket at Vex ( _Vex?_ _What a fitting name_ ) and Cassandra, laughing. “They have the same chin.”

Cassandra didn’t think she could stand to look at her father’s face even in miniature and instead began looking for a chain for the medal. The Briarwoods hadn’t touched it because they didn’t like Pelor. She had an idea, childish and half-formed, that if she wore Pelor’s symbol then she would be protected. She would become more like Pelor, something the Briarwoods didn’t like.

“Your father was very handsome,” Vex said. “Who’s the baby in the other picture?”

Cassandra kept her head lowered over the jewelry box. “Julius. She had it made just after he was born.”

“He was the oldest, right?” Keyleth asked. “What an angel. Look at his fat little cheeks and all that hair. I bet Percy was a cute baby.”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Cassandra. She’d found, tucked in a corner, a handful of letters tied together with a blue ribbon. She held the package gingerly, then put it back. 

Vex snapped the locket shut and, with a thin-lipped frown, handed it to Cassandra. Their fingers brushed. Vex’s were very cold. “There are some clothes and things as well. We found a whole closet filled with nothing but lady’s shoes.” 

“Take whatever you like,” Cassandra said, distracted. 

Vex drew herself up stiffly and tossed her hair behind her shoulder. “They’re not my size.” 

Ignoring her, Cassandra pressed onward. Why wasn’t there a chain? Mother had miles and miles of silver chains. There were pressed flowers and hatpins with little jade embellishments and a pocket-watch with a sparrow engraved on the back but there wasn’t a single chain for the medal. 

“Are you looking for something in particular? Where else did your mother keep her jewelry?” Keyleth sounded anxious and Cassandra realized that she must seem a madwoman, spilling bits and bobbles all over the floor as she tore through the box, one hand clutching the medal in a fist. 

“I just want a chain… Just a plain necklace…” She began to feel slightly frantic, her heart pounding and her face very hot.

“We’ll keep an out for one,” Keyleth touched Cassandra’s shoulder softly. “Would you like to look around with us? Give us the grand tour?”

“Come on darling, nobody knows this place better than you do,” Vex said.

_(Mother and Father knew it better, and so did the Briarwoods.)_

 

* * *

“I wish you could have seen the look on Percy’s face when he heard that you survived. It was like a little kid at Winter’s Crest,” Keyleth said, wobbling forward on high heeled slippers. Vex, draped in silk scarves and shuffling an ancient pack of playing cards, grinned.

“Even now, every night he’s like a worried mother. ‘Do you think Cassandra’s eating enough?’ ‘Did Cassandra look pale this morning, d’you think?’” Vex frowned and pulled a card out of the pack. “You have different suits than us.”

Already Cassandra had learnt that they didn’t always expect a response to their chatter, and continued rifling through Vesper’s traveling case. It was still half-packed for her anticipated honeymoon and the contents seemed to consist mostly of extremely impractical corsets and frilly nightdresses. All wrapped in tissue paper and pressed with sprigs of lavender to keep the moths away. So much care taken to fold every silly undergarment just right. 

Keyleth gracelessly plopped onto the floor and began pulling off the shoes. “How do you do anything in these?”

“Practice,” said Vex. “I had a governess in Syngorn who made me walk back and forth across a room in heels for _hours_ until I got it right. Cassandra, do you use these cards for fortune telling as well or is there a different kind of deck?”

“I’ve never seen fortune telling with cards. My Aunt Clotilde read tea leaves sometimes and Father always asked the augurs before a big decision,” Cassandra said. “Percival used to make fun of him for being superstitious.” 

Vex cocked her head to the side. “You all called him Percival? All the time?” 

“It _is_ his name,” Cassandra said gruffly. “Mother called him Percy when he was a baby and I think some of his friends at school might have. He was mostly Percival. _Is_ , I suppose. To me at least.” She held up a pair of very sheer silk stockings and frowned at them. “Does anybody want these? I don’t know what Vesper was thinking. She would have frozen to death.”

“Oh they _are_ lovely but I’d destroy them in about ten minutes I’m afraid,” Vex said. “I do have my eye on those lace knickers though.” 

Keyleth went very red. “You can’t take her sister’s undergarments,” she muttered, nudging Vex with her foot. 

“They’ve never been worn,” Cassandra said. “I’m sure she’d want someone to enjoy them.” 

It was bullshit; she had no idea what Vesper would have wanted them to do with her things. It was Cassandra who wanted someone to enjoy all of Vesper’s pretty clothes. Cassandra wanted to make Vex happy, to make Vex like her despite days of sullen silences. Vesper was dead; she had no opinion on the matter.

“They'll have to be taken in a bit, but look! Your sister had excellent taste,” said Vex, holding the knickers up to her hips and twirling slightly. “And you never know when you need this sort of thing.” Then, in one fluid motion, she dropped the knickers, leaned down and kissed the top of Cassandra’s head. “Thank you. You’re a dear, you know that?” 

“Take the camisole as well,” Cassandra said mildly, trying not to show her obvious pleasure in the kiss.

 

* * *

 

Vex and Cassandra walked into the dining room with their arms linked. 

 

* * *

  

She dreamt of Vesper’s wedding except she was the one being married to Vesper and when she pulled back the veil at Keeper Yennen’s request, Delilah was underneath. She woke up and vomited over the side of the bed. After cleaning up the mess, she felt jittery and far too awake and so, for the first time since Delilah was been there with her, guiding her hand, she touched herself. It felt a little bit like a betrayal.

She thought about Delilah, then Sylas, then Lord Kerrion, and then, frustrated with her lack of success, thought about Vex twirling in Vesper’s lace knickers. 

* * *

 

Vex was incredibly, dangerously persuasive, which was how, despite her misgivings and her pride, Cassandra found herself curled up on Father’s favorite armchair, drinking his brandy, watching her brother and his friends play a dice game. She wasn’t sure what the rules of the game were because no matter how the dice landed, they all drank. 

She’d wanted to hide in her room after supper. Or, she didn’t _want_ to hide in her room after supper but had resigned herself to it. And then Vex grabbed her by the wrist and pleaded and cajoled and teased, and somehow all of Cassandra’s delicate excuses fell apart under her touch.

And really, it was sort of nice. The fire was warm and everyone was laughing. They weren’t even drinking that much, not as much as Cassandra anticipated. Apparently they behaved like drunkards with very little provocation except each other’s boisterous company. Keyleth, presently the most intoxicated, just held her bare feet in front of the fire and giggled at nothing.

Cassandra drank out of habit. 

 

* * *

Vex’s mouth was so close and so pink, and Cassandra was _so_ fucking _wet._

 

* * *

 

Cassandra vomited in Mother’s favorite vase while Keyleth gently massaged her scalp. “It happens to everyone,” the gnome cheerfully called from the next room. 

 

* * *

“It’s not that you aren’t gorgeous, darling, because you are.” Vex’s voice floated across a very vast and very stormy sea. “You’re just very young.”

 

“You’re not that old,” Cassandra spat. “Delilah was older than you.”

 

* * *

 

It was the headache that woke her up and only after she’d lay in bed cursing herself for a few moments did she sit up and realize that Percival was sitting across from her with his arms crossed. 

“Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?” His eyes were grey and hollowed out, and he wore the previous evening’s clothes. Cassandra shook her head and crawled back under the covers. Her stomach revolted at the mere suggestion of coffee.

Percival cleared his throat and sounded very much like his father in the process. Groggy, disoriented with pain, Cassandra let the resemblance wash over her and found it didn’t hurt as much as she anticipated. Her brother had grown up to look like their father. It was not an uncommon circumstance.

“I don’t want you to feel embarrassed.” 

Cassandra stared.

“Nobody minds. We’ve all had it happen one time or another and, _erm.._.” He uncrossed his arms and ran a hand through his hair. “Everyone just wants you to feel better and for you not to be embarrassed. And I want you to know that…” 

He trailed off and seemed to steel himself for a moment before continuing. “They can’t hurt you anymore. And I promise that I won’t let anyone else hurt you. And if you want to talk about what they… I mean, we can talk about it. Or I can find a healer. Or you could talk to someone else. Vex said she knew a bit of what you went through. And she’d like to help. We all want to help. And I know you don’t like us very much and I’ve been a horrid brother and none of us are a replacement for Mother or Father or Vesper or any of them, but...” He shrugged. “They are my family, so now they’re your family too.”

Cassandra nodded, opened her mouth to say that _it was fine, really, she was quite alright,_ and instead found herself sobbing. 

 

* * *

Vex found her in the process of finishing the fireplace cover.

“You’re very talented,” she said. “Would you make me something?”

And then Cassandra began to cry for the second time in two hours.

 

* * *

 

“How did you get over it?” Cassandra asked Percival as he cleaned out Father’s favorite clay pipe. “I can’t go ten minutes without wanting to die of it.”

“I’m hardly a model for healthy coping mechanisms,” he said quietly. “But, uh... having an occupation helps.”

An occupation was for the lesser gentry at best. A de Rolo worked, obviously; he worked to bring honor to his family and continue the legacy of those who came before him, but that wasn’t an occupation exactly. In practice it meant supervising the servants and writing memorandums and surveying the property. What did Mother do all day? She cooked and looked after the children and planned banquets and distributed alms to the poor and read newspapers. She made sure that Vesper could marry the man she’d been in love with since they were fifteen and then harangued Father into setting aside a suitable dowry. She fussed over the horses and Whitney’s pet bird and ordered warm pajamas for everyone. She worried over Ludwig’s gambling and Percival’s melancholy. She made stuffy diplomats laugh and negotiated treaties and brewed big pots of willow tea whenever anyone was ill.

It wasn’t an occupation the way being a blacksmith or a builder was, but it was something.

 

* * *

 

“How did you get over it?” Cassandra asked Vex over breakfast. 

Vex swallowed her mouthful of eggs and took a sip of tea. “You don’t, but you find something else to worry about.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope cassandra doesn't come off as ooc here; i wanted to explore how she becomes the ice cold queen that we see in later arcs. i assume that there was some period of adjustment from being a prisoner in her own home to being in charge of a city, and ime that kind of adjustment usually manifests as a lot of drinking and crying. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> title is from 'delilah' by florence and the machine because of course it is.
> 
> comments are always appreciated!


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